Saturday, September 29, 2012

[Kyle]Once we were settled in, we had a whirlwind weekend with my Mom. It was only two days, but we did so much.

Statue of Liberty & 'Spirit of the Dance' found in Radio City Music Hall

The night Carla arrived we took a sail down to see the Statue of Liberty and dined aboard. The following day started with a stroll through Bryant Park followed by a carriage ride through Central Park. Once we were done, we strolled around a bit until stopping for lunch at Conservatory Pond, where we nibbled away while watching the nearby RC sailboat races. After the park, we found ourselves blocked in by a parade with a German theme. We walked several blocks, then gave up and took a Pedi cab back across to the other side where we could get a proper cab into midtown.

Horse & Carriage through Central Park, and when our exit was blocked by a giant wienermobile and German-American parade, we dashed back across the park in a Pedi-Cab

Then we got to the point of the whole weekend: Mom had bought us all tickets to The Book of Mormon for Maryanne’s Birthday. I had been looking forward to it even though I usually groan my way through musicals. I wasn’t disappointed. It was wonderful! I absolutely loved every minute of it. I can’t recall the last time I had such a great time at a movie or a show. I’m still singing along and this time, it’s a good thing.

Shopping and learning at Eataly!

Maryanne followed that by booking us all for a cooking lesson at Eataly. Eataly is not so much a store as an indoor complex of Italian stores and restaurants taking up a whole block. Our lesson was in a small corner demonstration kitchen, where we were allowed to eat the four-course meal as well as all of the bread and wine we could handle. It was really interesting to talk to the chefs and see and learn the hows and whys of the preparation. Like wine or whisky tasting, it helps the enjoyment to know which flavors to be looking for.

Day two started with a trip to Rockefeller Center for the fabulous Radio City Music Hall tour. Afterward, we had lunch at Grand Central Station and meandered through Bryant Park on our way to the bus station, where we would board the bus to Elizabeth, firmly bringing us all back down to Earth. We made the best of it, though, by eating yet another wonderful meal at Valenca, which is in my opinion Elizabeth’s only legitimate attraction. That place is amazing.

NYC - what is not to love?

Mom got on a flight the next day back to her busy life. Maryanne and I have been spending the time since slowly moving from our apartment in Elizabeth to the boat and getting happily accustomed to our new surroundings.

[Kyle]With a forecast for an increasing onshore wind, I decided my next planned stop at Barnegat Inlet was too risky to attempt. That meant my best option was a long all-day and night sail up the coast.

Not bad!

High tide for the trip out of the inlet wasn’t until early afternoon, so I made a point of staying in bed until I was bored of it and then making an oversized dinner for breakfast. I went outside to take in the sunshine knowing it would be too hot for mosquitos or no-see-ums and was immediately beset upon by a very aggressive variety of deerfly. Rather than hanging out and waiting for my guard to be down for a chance at a bite like other biting flies, these little terrors immediately attacked as soon as I came through the door. They were like angry bees and their bite was very painful. I retreated back inside, armed myself with my trusty fly-swatter and came back out swinging. The only thing good about these flies were that they were slow enough to be easy to swat. I would attack every one I could see for about ten minutes. This gave me five minutes of relative peace and quiet until the next swarm found me. I repeated this cycle until the tide was high enough to leave.

I followed my inbound GPS track and the trip out of the inlet was uneventful. The depth and buoy placements had absolutely no correlation to the chart. I couldn’t help but think I could have navigated just as effectively and a lot more cheaply with a road atlas to tell me which gap was which inlet, and then finding my way in with buoys or by following a local. Prudence wouldn’t let me do it, though.

Once I was clear of the breakers in the open sea, I was thrilled to turn downwind and have a fast, comfortable sail along the coast. Since the wind was coming from seaward, it also had no bugs. I watched the sunset and the moonrise. I made a pot of coffee and was perfectly contented watching the lights on shore slowly scroll by and the mast tracing irregular patterns in the field of stars above.

A ship passed a little farther offshore, prompting me to take an inventory of coastal shipping on our AIS. I was surprised to find that one of the targets several miles back was tagged as the Irish Sea. They were still way over the horizon. The Irish Sea is the oceangoing tug where our former roommate Angie serves as Assistant Engineer. The AIS predicted that they would be overtaking me in about three hours. On my next position update text to Maryanne, I added a little note about Angie’s boat.

The wind increased through the night, boosting my speed and keeping the time of our closest point of approach steady at three more hours. Just after midnight, my phone rang. It was Angie. She had received a message from Maryanne when she started her watch and was calling from the bridge, where she reported she could see me on radar. She told me they had been underway non-stop since Houston and this was the first good weather they’ve had since.

I spent the wee hours of the morning engaged in a futile John Henry style race between my wind-powered boat and a tug driven by two huge locomotive engines. The constant trimming helped keep me awake and I was holding my own respectably until I got close enough to shore to be in the wind shadow of Sandy Hook, when my speed started falling. The Irish Sea was now getting noticeably bigger and closer.

I held them off by taking the shallower South Channel as a shortcut towards the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. When I rejoined the main channel, they were only a couple of tug-and-barge lengths behind me. I called Angie to tell her about our upcoming meeting. She works in the engine room and would not have been able to keep track of me from there. While still on the phone with me, I could see her come out on the lower deck and start snapping pictures of Begonia (None of them came out. It was too dark and there was too much motion). We eventually got close enough that we could have easily tossed a tennis ball back and forth.

The Irish Sea is a huge boat, particularly while pushing a barge. The upper bridge, from where the tug is steered while in harbor, is probably thirty feet above Begonia’s masthead. As they passed, The Irish Sea blocked my wind and I slowed down. I expected the passing to go quickly, but it seemed to be taking forever. Angie suggested I get on the radio with the guy at the helm and find out what was going on.

Night time meetup with The Irish Sea

It turned out his plan had been to get a good look at me, then to drop back and pass behind me to anchor on our right. My slowing down was messing up his plan. I had no way to speed up, but I told him I had enough room and wind to turn toward him and pass close behind since Angie reported that the engines were at idle. He seemed happy with that plan. I made my turn. Once I was on the upwind side, I picked up speed and was able to pass them at the same distance on their left before they peeled off for the anchorage. When they did, I high-tailed it out of the channel to make way for the steady stream of shipping coming up astern.

About half an hour later, after passing under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, a cruise ship very brusquely ordered me to turn to starboard to give him more room. I was already well out of the channel in twelve feet of water, which I’m sure wasn’t even close to what they needed, but I made a point of turning as far as I dared without jibing just so that my predicted course on their radar would leave no doubt that I would be any where near the deep water channel. I was ¾ of a mile to starboard of the ship in front of him.

When he passed me, he called me back and went on a long rant about how I had come so close to that tug that it looked on radar that I was their barge. This is a busy harbor and I need to stay away from shipping, etc. I thanked him for his advice periodically, but it only seemed to encourage him to rant more. He finally shut up when I explained that the tug and I knew each other and we were taking pictures of each other, I wasn’t just some clueless sailor oblivious to shipping. When he passed, I saw that the cruise ship was the exact same ship Maryanne and I had seen in Santorini almost exactly a year earlier aboard Footprint. By then, any urge I had to “catch up” had been squashed.

They pulled into the cruise ship piers just past Chelsea, I continued to 79th St Basin. By then, the sun was up. I called the dockmaster to find out which mooring he wanted me to use. He told me they no longer allowed catamarans to use their moorings. This was a shock. We had stayed there on Footprint and Prydwen and had always had the company of a few catamarans. He seemed apologetic and offered to let me anchor on either side of the mooring field if I could find a spot I liked. I tried for a while, but I eventually couldn’t. The shelf was too steep to give me any confidence in the strong current.

Defeated and exhausted, I called Maryanne for help. 79th St. is New York’s only reasonably priced option during the April to October season. Moorings there were $180/week. Liberty Landing Marina had previously told us the rate was $5.25/foot/day with no weekly or monthly discount. Other marinas were similar. Maryanne made a few phone calls and was eventually able to get us a slip in the marina where we planned to winter. The rest of the month would cost as much as the whole winter. That was actually a bit of a deal considering the other alternatives, so she told them to expect me. Sweetly, she also told them to help me tie up and to let me go right to sleep when I got there. She would handle the bill later when she joined me.

I showed up just as it started blowing hard and pouring rain. I got tied up without incident and was soon enjoying a fitful sleep in the lurchiest, swelliest marina I have ever docked.

I awoke late afternoon when Maryanne arrived from the apartment and emerged to have a look around. The first person we met was the guy in the boat next door, Nick. Nick is short for Nickolai. We became immediate friends when we bid him “Kalispera” and he noticed the Athena nameplate on Begonia, his hometown.

Nick turned out to be the best guy we could have ended up alongside. The jerking back and forth in the marina was severe enough to worry us about the possibility of having our cleats torn out of the deck. Nick’s boat and many others nearby were equipped with several robust looking springs between docklines and dock. We asked about them and it turns out he manufactures them. He had another lot coming in from the factory tomorrow and he would see that we got some. We augmented them with new, stretchier docklines and a few more sturdy fenders. We now ease to a stop rather than jerking in all but the worst cases. The swell turns out to be caused entirely by wakes on the Hudson. At night when the ferries stop, the marina is calm and comfortable. During the day when they’re running, not so much.

Night time Manhattan skyline view from Begonia

Apart from the omnipresent daytime swell, Maryanne and I love our new neighborhood. We are right across the river from the Empire State Building, which is lit up with different colors almost every night. We have a million-dollar view right from our cockpit. Our neighborhood is beautiful and vibrant and if we want more excitement, Times Square is only one bus stop away. As Maryanne and I take exploratory evening walks, she is constantly interrupting the conversation to beam at me and proclaim again and again, “I really like it!”

Friday, September 07, 2012

[Kyle]I woke up while it was still dark, dreading the prospect of going back out of the inlet {Maryanne: I insist you have to go out the outlet, and it isn't called an inlet when you are going out}. The weather was supposed to be flat calm all day. I thought about it a while and decided to leave on the highest tide that would allow me to get under an intervening bridge. That way, there should be less chance of surf and what surf there was should have more water under it. I should be able to go out with a meter and a half more water than when I came in.

I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep with all of the worrying, so I just decided to get up. I checked the NOAA site over coffee and found out that they had issued a rip current and heavy surf warning for the east coast due to long period swells pushed ahead by Hurricane Leslie 500 miles to the east. They were expecting it to last all week. Yikes! I only had a few days before my 15-knot tailwinds were forecast to shift to 30-knot headwinds for the foreseeable future. It's definitely time to keep pushing north.

At first light, I braved the bugs and the smell and went out on deck to see what I could of the distant inlet through the binoculars. What I could see was pounding surf that looked worse than the day before. I tried to remind myself that it was dead low tide and that it should improve as the water rises and that I couldn’t see the whole inlet from my anchorage.

As the tide rose, I busied myself with making a big meal and getting the boat ready. While I did that, I kept trying to distract myself by playing podcasts on our radio, but I couldn’t stop worrying about how I was going to have to go out there eventually. I decided that I would take a look. If I couldn’t find a way out, I could always come back for as long as I needed – to the marina, not the stinky anchorage.

Just after I pulled up anchor, I saw a Coast Guard patrol boat leave the inlet. With our AIS (Automatic Identification System), I was able to see his route into the ocean. When I got there, conditions weren’t nearly as bad as I’d feared. I could see a clear path out using the Coast Guard route. There was also another option along the buoyed channel. Not sure of the CGs draught, I chose the latter route with nothing worse than steep swell. Toward the end, I could see my mistake from the previous evening. Another buoy had been placed off the direct line between the safe water buoy and the one I headed towards. I hadn’t seen it because it was frequently hidden by surf from that angle. My shortcut was still in an area of alarming surf. The zigzag took me completely around it on the way out.

For the rest of what was a short day compared to the previous two, not a breath of wind blew. I motored on one engine up the coast on a sea only broken by Leslie’s swells. I stayed just outside the surf where the motion was somewhat soothing until I arrived at Little Egg Inlet.

The Coast Guard and Tow Boat US performing practice rescues in the Atlantic - and Atlantic City in the distance

Once I got near enough, I could clearly see the breakers on radar, then by sight. A big sport fishing boat blasted by me on his way into the inlet. I followed his target with the radar as it appeared on the chart to travel right across several sandbars and avoided deep water. I followed his track until I could spot the buoys then crossed the same 'sandbars' in smooth water. The depth never went below 11m and the deep water on the chart was a mess of jumbled breakers. The Coast Pilot says the buoys along the NJ coast aren’t charted because of shifting inlets that change too often. This particular inlet had no resemblance to the chart at all.

Once safely inside, I followed the buoyed channel around the corner to my selected anchoring spot. As I was getting ready to turn out of the deep channel into the anchorage, the depth sounder reading started plummeting. I was on the correct side of the adjacent buoy in water the chart also said should be deep, but it was still getting shallower. I turned, but that made it worse. I turned the other way and it still got worse. I put the engines in neutral and had almost stopped when I touched bottom.

Just then, a guy on a SeaTow boat called me on the radio to tell me it was shallow there. Well, no kidding! He came over and directed me back into deep water, which was nowhere near the buoy, by the way. My grounding had been soft enough that I was able to just put the engines in idle reverse and back off. Once I was back in deep water, he helpfully told me how to get back to the inlet so I could get to the ocean. {Since we are not even Sea Tow members, this fantastic assistance and information was extra nice}

I explained that I just came from there and I was trying to anchor for the night. He suggested a protected spot nearby and told me how to avoid coming to more grief along the way. Inlet channel buoys are changed all of the time. They’re right. The other buoys are all wrong. Jeez, how does anybody find their way around here?

As I applied power for the trip to the anchorage, the right engine started shaking wildly. I brought it back to idle, then put it in reverse. Reverse seemed smooth. Back to forward. It started rough, and then got smooth. When I backed down on the anchor, it shook again wildly, I tried forward again and it was rough too. I was worried that I bent or even threw a blade or perhaps the shaft was bent. Once I was finished with securing everything, I once again donned mask and fins and once again found a fish trap float line wrapped around the prop. This time it was wrapped loosely so that it didn’t interfere with the operation, but swung around and threw the whole thing off balance.

My anchorage smelled better, but was still surrounded by miles of buggy swamp, forcing me inside for the evening. I’m beginning to understand why I don’t recall seeing any books entitled “The Cruiser’s Guide to New Jersey”. If only Maryanne were here. I wouldn’t need to stop for sleep and this whole thing would have been two offshore days of sitting alternating watches. But then I would have missed all of these great New Jersey destinations. {Maryanne: He's still grumpy isn't he? Clearly Kyle was never meant to sail alone, we'll have to sort that out soon}

[Kyle]A closing weather window and the desire to take full advantage of Delaware Bay’s strong tides necessitated a departure in the dark the next morning. I realized once it was too late that I could have skipped the coffee before leaving. The adrenaline of motoring down a pitch black river full of unlit “no wake” buoys, fish trap floats and other debris was more than enough to wake me right up. I kept thinking about the huge stump I saw floating up the river with the tide the night before. I was constantly running to the bow to scan the water with the spotlight, then running back to the helm to change course. I tried to use the spotlight from the helm, but so much of the light fell on the boat in front of me that it completely washed out the background. As soon as I made a course change, I worried I couldn’t see and as soon as I spotted something with the light, I worried I wouldn’t make it back to the helm in time to dodge it. {It looks like we'll be adding a wireless remote autopilot to Kyle Christmas list!}

I arrived at the Bay proper just as the first hint of light made seeing a little easier. I forget who said it, but the Delaware Bay has been called the nautical equivalent of a root canal: nobody enjoys it, but it’s something you just have to get through. That sounds about right to me. I’ve been through it a few times and it’s always a chore. I was going to write my shortest blog entry ever called “Things to Like About Delaware Bay”, but I decided to have the longer rant about it here. The entire entry would read: “If you’re going from Baltimore to New York, it’s a lot shorter than going all the way out the Chesapeake Bay entrance”. That’s it. There is nothing else to like about Delaware Bay. Like that other awful body of water, the Irish Sea, Delaware Bay is shallow and brown and has such strong currents that even calm wind days are choppy. In addition, the Delaware Bay has nothing of any interest on either side, which is fine, because the route from the center runs a maze of shoals and hazards. A very busy shipping channel that is just littered either side with fish trap floats cuts the wide bay. {Visitors might sense Kyle is getting a little curmudgeoney.. Time to get him home soon I think}

The first few miles were due south directly into the wind until passing the Salem nuclear power plant. In order to avoid the procession of ships, I had to weave my way through the float zone. There were so many of them that I didn’t dare leave the helm for even a drink of water or a pee. I dipped into the shipping channel during a gap and put the sails up. Begonia is much faster under sail than under power. It was a pleasure to go zipping down the bay ticking off the miles. The current heaped the bay into an uncomfortable boiling froth, but at least it was going my way.

As the current peaked, I was “enjoying” a nail-biting slalom run through the floats. I turned upwind to dodge one only to have to turn further for another, using my inertia to carry me past and then swinging the wheel to leeward before the boat stalled. Another float appeared and I didn’t have enough rudder authority at the low speed to avoid it. The boat slowed and the steering became sluggish. The float had not popped out from the stern.

I tried hard turns both ways, hoping it was just caught on the rudder and that would free it, but I still couldn’t get hardly any speed. I had to pull the sails down, stop the boat and have a proper look. Leaning way over the side, I could see the offending string of floats sticking out between in the area of the sail drive between the keel and the rudder. I leaned and yanked and poked it with a boathook all to no avail. With a dock line tied to me to keep the boat from drifting away, I donned mask and fins and went in for a look. The float line had somehow managed to get wrapped around the drive leg, two prop blades and the rudder shaft, even though the prop was not turning and the boat was going basically one direction.
It took me four dives, but I finally managed to unravel the whole thing. I emerged gasping for air, spitting seawater, covered in rubbed off blue bottom paint and screaming obscenities at all fishermen.

With the fish trap no longer dragging me down, I was drifting fast through yet more traps. I didn’t dare start the engines so, still dripping wet, I unfurled the jib in the hope of getting enough steerage-way to point upwind to raise the main. I was just slowly making the turn when, unable to steer fast enough, I snagged another line.
Again, I had to furl the sail, stop the boat, dive in and untangle the line. I now officially hate fishermen.

I had lost the current, which was reversing fast, and I now needed to point as far upwind as I could to have any hope of eventually clearing Cape May and making it into the Atlantic without tacking.

It was a long, root canal of a way, but I finally made it into the Atlantic. Ahh, the Atlantic, so free of stuff to hit. I made a turn downwind and had such a fast sail that I decided to skip the stop at Cape May and push on to Great Egg Inlet, near Ocean City.

Distant lands of Cape May

It was a race to arrive by sunset. When I got there, a huge thunderstorm was over the inlet, making it even darker. I could see some breakers on radar, but it was getting confused with the rain return. I got to the safe water buoy at the entrance and turned in on the prescribed course towards the next buoy.

After a few minutes, the water started getting weird. The two-foot waves I had been in all day were turning into five-foot swell that seemed to be getting steeper and steeper. Ahead, I could see that I was approaching the back of a surf line. I checked my depth and the chart and they seemed to be in agreement. Still a little nervous, I picked the least swelly looking bit and continued on. The depth sounder reading went from 10m to 4m, the charted depth of the channel. Then it went down to 1.7m (our draught is 1.2m) before a breaking wave hit and it went to dashes in the turbulence. Begonia slewed thirty degrees and then righted herself, and then the sounder showed 6.5m. Whew!

I was jacked up all over again, just like in the morning. Five-foot breaking waves are not a danger to the boat by themselves. My concern was WHY they were breaking. The 1.7m reading could have been caused by underwater turbulence or there could have been an uncharted sandbar there.

It was clear on the other side and I had no other issues coming in, except for the stress caused by the waning light and the sound of the breakers on either side of the deep channel. I looked back for a smooth way out the next day and could not see one. I was NOT looking forward to going back out.

I wove my way a couple of miles into the inlet and set the anchor in a protected spot. Bug filled marsh again surrounded me. This one had the unfortunate addition of smelling like a cross between low tide and a warm dumpster. I was glad it was only for a short night.

[Kyle]We were up SUPER early in order to have Maryanne at the Inner Harbor by 4 a.m. for her train to NY. Once I dropped her off, I retraced our path in the dark past our anchorage at Key Bridge, past Stoney Creek and back into Chesapeake Bay.

The wind, sun and tide all arrived at the same time and I had a great time making it back to Still Pond in half the time we had before. The weather forecast for the next week indicated it would be a good idea for me to make a really long day of it and keep pushing all the way through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

As the Bay slowly narrowed down to the canal, the unimpeded wind of the open bay diminished. My sail became a motorsail and then just motoring when the sails finally were just hanging there uselessly.

Heading East in the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal

After I left the canal, I crossed the Delaware to the Camden River. A few miles upstream, I made it to my anchorage at the town of Camden. Actually, Camden didn’t seem so much a town as a series of houses along one side of the river that became increasingly dilapidated the further upstream I went. This culminated in the ironically named Camden Yacht Club. The “yachts” were mostly aged powerboats, many of which seemed barely afloat or possibly resting on a shallow bottom.

As I approached, I was the recipient of several “Deliverance” style stares. They seemed to be not sure if I was expecting to tie up or get fuel. When I continued on and dropped anchor just upstream, more people came out to stare. I did my whole post-sailing checklist with an audience. They must not get too many cruisers stopping by in fancy sailboats. I have no idea why, but then I’ve been to Wick (recall?).

In Camden, the side of the river not lined with houses is marshland as far as the eye can see, making a home for every conceivable variety of biting insect. There were several different species of flies, mosquitos, flying ants and worst of all, no-see-ums, or as the West Indians call them: teefs. Even though the inside of the boat was a greenhouse warmed even further by the engines, I had no choice but to retreat into the only bug-free space for miles

[Kyle]After a nice, lazy weekend, it was time to take Maryanne back to Baltimore for her train for work.

On the Monday afternoon we had a fast sail back across the Bay from Still Pond along with everybody else returning from the weekend. I was particularly enjoying the sight of a couple of monohulls going the same direction in front of us that were rapidly getting bigger. My plan had been to pass them just as we were enjoying hors d’oeuvre’s spread out festively on the cockpit table. I would wave nonchalantly to the soaking crews hiked out on the rail as we zinged by. Unfortunately, they peeled off (at Middle River, no less) just before I got to them, so a portion of my fun was foiled.

To the south towards Annapolis, a huge, ugly looking gray sky indicated a storm was approaching. We could hear several boats on the radio that were talking to each other about it. Some had just come through; some were just getting into it. NOAA Weather Radio was broadcasting all sorts of “seek safe harbor” announcements. We kept track of it with radar which assured us we’d miss the deluge. When the storm passed nearby we rolled up the genoa to protect ourselves from any gusts. We were still chugging along under main alone and managed to get into the Patapsco between the worst of the showers. All we saw was a few seconds of biggish raindrops.

I had planned to anchor again in Stoney Creek the night before Maryanne’s early train for all of the reasons I picked there to wait for her arrival. This time, however, I intended to anchor outside the drawbridge in order to avoid delays dealing with what I have come to decide is the world’s most dim-witted bridge tender. Scratch that, I just remembered the Elizabeth City guy. The Stoney Creek guy is a VERY close second. {Kyle has yet to learn public tact - sorry all}

When we got to our intended spot, which was the only one on that side of the bridge, we found that a local fisherman had taken up all of the usable anchoring space with closely spaced pots. I wanted to stay and see if I could make something work, Maryanne was for giving up and sucking up the extortionate holiday cost of a slip in the Inner Harbor.

After some, ahem, discussion on the matter, I grumpily agreed and headed for Baltimore (Why does she always end up being right in the end? It’s VERY annoying.). Now, although she is not apparently known for it as well as I am, Maryanne can also be cheap about certain things. She particularly dislikes overly expensive restaurants and paying $100 per night for the use of each of two cleats. While our guides were pretty clear that there were no particularly nice or protected anchorages between Stoney Creek and Baltimore, the weather was settled and we just needed a safe spot too shallow for shipping that was out of the way. Maryanne pored over the chart and found a suitable looking spot at the mouth of Curtis Creek. Since I had cell phone reception, I looked on Google Earth to get more of a feel for what was on the chart. It turns out our chosen spot was right next to the Baltimore Waste Water Treatment Plant. Uh, Veto! I looked again and was able to find a spot at one end of the Key bridge next to the power plant. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but we were out of shipping’s way, we had the whole place to ourselves AND it was exposed enough to keep our wind generator spinning all night so we awoke with full batteries.

So we spent the evening anchored by the bridge enjoy relative quiet and privacy with a nice meal and a glass of wine.

[Maryanne] The Bridge is called the Francis Scott Key Bridge. For my fellow Brits I'll let you know who Francis is.. He's the attorney/lawyer who watched, from a truce ship in the Patapsco River, the British fail to take Fort McHenry way back in September 13 1814. By dawn the American flag was tattered but still flying and he was inspired to write a poem. That poem eventually became the 'Start Spangled Banner' and the American national anthem.

This very unusual buoy is placed during the summer season in the river, at the very spot he viewed the battle from.

Sunday, September 02, 2012

[Kyle]Kate and Mark were unfortunately unable to make it for the weekend. Maryanne and I decided to skip the stress of Baltimore altogether and took a longish sail up the bay in light winds.

As it was a holiday weekend, boats were out everywhere. Most were being operated by people who I assume only get out two or three times per year, and made for alternating frustration and entertainment. The radio on channel 16 was filled with the continuous noise of angry people screaming at others about their wakes, or wondering why a commercial fisherman was upset with them after motoring over fishing gear. We weren’t in the main harbor, so it affected us mostly by just making the radio chatter annoying or entertaining.

The most entertaining moment was when a man called the Coast Guard saying he was lost. When they responded, he gave them a GPS position, and told them he was just outside Pleasure Island. Someone asked if he had a chart. He responded that he did, and that he was lost. At another point, a spaced out couple on a powerboat came over to us and yelled “Middle River”. After a little confusion, we were able to determine that they were completely lost and were asking us which way to Middle River. We gave them our best directions, but Middle River was far enough away that we were sure they wouldn’t make it all the way without finding someone else to ask.

We found a couple of boats going our direction and tried to get into informal races with them, but they were tippy boats dragging big pieces of lead so as soon as we unfurled our sails, they would soon shrink behind us toward the horizon, ruining our fun.

Finally, nice weather and pleasant sailing

As afternoon arrived, the wind began departing. We managed to keep up our speed by hoisting our spinnaker for a while until even it wouldn’t stay filled anymore. We fired up the starboard engine for the rest of the way to our anchorage at Still Pond. It was more full than we had ever seen, but there was still plenty of room for us to pick out a relatively secluded spot for a quiet weekend aboard. The forecast was for a high probability of rain, so we decided not to have any plans, per se, but to just take it as the weather allowed. It’s nice to be back together aboard our own boat.

[Kyle]I motored the short seven miles to the next harbor in light headwinds. Maryanne was coming into Baltimore via train and we also were expecting our good friends Kate and Mark, with whom we sailed across the Aegean a year earlier, to drive up from Norfolk.

A couple of complications of a Baltimore pickup were that it was Labor Day weekend and there was a grand prix race taking place on the waterfront at the Inner Harbor. Competition for berthing space was high and the local maritime businesses were responding by jacking up prices accordingly.

My goal then became to get near enough to Baltimore to avoid the price gouging while still being close enough for everyone to be able to get to Begonia easily. I found a nice spot in Stoney Creek where I was able to spend the next couple of days pottering around the boat fixing minor things, swimming and reconnoitering landing spots for pickup.

Maryanne arrived late Friday after a full workday for her. Even though she must have been pretty tired, we were still able to find time to lie out on the trampoline, talking and enjoying the stars on our newly fixed-up boat.

[Kyle]I was up early the next morning for my next leg up the Bay. My early plan was to stop at Tippity Wichity Island in the St. Mary’s river on the north side of the Potomac. The forecast, however, was for an unfavorable wind shift the next morning. I decided to make the most of the current favorable wind that I could while I still had it.

When I got to the point that I would have needed to leave the Bay for Tippity Wichity, I was making good way on a comfortable point of sail. I was feeling rested and alert, so I decided to continue on to the next logical stop at Solomon’s Island at the mouth of the Patuxent River.

I arrived at the Patuxent just before sunset. The wind had picked up, was still out of a good direction and I was still feeling alert. The long stretch of Chesapeake Bay between the Patuxent and the Annapolis area is a desert of decent anchorages, at least on the western side. To continue would be to commit myself to another eight hours of sailing. With the next day’s forecast headwinds, it would be at least twice that much time tacking back and forth against it. I decided to continue on while the wind was so favorable, made a pot of coffee, and settled in for the night.

It was marvelous sailing. I had the whole bay to myself, the wind was from behind and warm and the nearly full moon lighted my way.

At 2 a.m., I arrived at Annapolis. Even though I had been up for twenty-three hours straight, I was still feeling surprisingly good. I decided to continue for another three hours to another anchorage at Bodkin Creek, at the mouth of the Patapsco River, upon which lay my weekend destination of Baltimore.

By the time I pulled out of the main channel for the Bodkin Creek inlet, I was starting to fade noticeably. It was short lived, however. The minute I pulled out of the main shipping channel, two things happened: The Moon went down, removing it’s helpful light and I suddenly came upon a minefield of crab pot floats. If a prop picked one of the float lines up, I would be disabled. There’s nothing like threat of impending disaster to get the adrenaline flowing and wake a person up. With spotlight handy, I wove my way in on a crazy zigzag path into the harbor involving lots of crash stops and full rudder turns.

Once inside the harbor, the floats stopped and I was able to find a nice spot in the middle of the river with good holding. I had come so far that I now had the luxury of only needing to go another seventeen miles or so over the next three days. Wind direction was now much less critical. I could take the last few miles at a much more leisurely pace.

As I was falling asleep just at the first light of day, I heard the rain come, signaling the arrival of the wind shift.

[Kyle / Maryanne] So, after our working trip to Ottawa, Maryanne and I finally got a weekend in which to enjoy the newly refitted Begonia. At least this was the plan.

I arrived on the Friday evening at Richmond airport, Kyle collected me and we headed off to a Mexican restaurant that had been a regular haunt in the days when I collected Kyle from Richmond after a work trip (when he could not fly into Norfolk) way back when we lived in Virginia. Since this was to be our last weekend in Virginia for the foreseeable future it was a nice way to say farewell (and saved any late night cooking and cleaning up).

With a forecast for showers in the morning, we felt no guilt about sleeping in to our hearts’ content as the occasional shower passed over the boat. Just about Noon, the first patches of blue sky started peeking through and we cast off the lines for an afternoon sail followed by an evening anchored in a nearby bay. The weather was miserable, but Kyle was convinced it would break. He’d planned for a good test sail for me to see my new boat in action, followed by a romantic night at anchor, he hadn’t planned for the weather and I was all for giving up and staying at the dock. With an ear to the weather channels and the VHF and an eye on the radar, Kyle determined by mid afternoon that we could head out; I certainly was not so convinced. It was still blustery, and by the time we’d left the dock heavy rain returned, by the time we left the tributary there were emergency warnings of tornadoes and waterspouts – Yikes, if only that had been announced 30 minutes earlier I’d have insisted we stay at the dock.

Before we had even left Broad Creek, where our marina is located, it started raining. I mean RAINING. Lightning was everywhere and rain was bouncing off the deck and striking me in the eyeballs so hard, I had trouble seeing. Returning to the dock for an indoor weekend, while desirable, was suddenly a completely unsafe option. We were in the mariner’s position that seems counter-intuitive to non-sailors where our most safe option was open water away from all of the dangers of harbor.

As we continued out into the Rappahannock, things got even worse. They continued to get gradually worse for the next few hours. The radio was alive with warnings of severe thunderstorms and waterspouts.

It was uncomfortable and I was completely soaked outside at the helm, but Begonia was just fine and Maryanne was dry inside. It was a good thing.

Yes, poor Kyle was drenched, and I was occasionally supportive and decided to stay inside – no point in us both being miserable; teamwork doesn’t mean we both have to get wet and cold, I’d have a towel at the ready, my small contribution!

As we approached our anchorage, I had some concern as to whether or not we would still be safer in deep water. The weather and latest forecast all suggested the worst was very much over, however, so we gave it a shot.

By the time we had finished setting anchor, the skies were clearing again. The remainder of the evening was actually very pleasant. I tried, but Maryanne wasn’t buying that I planned it that way. Hmm, setting the anchor in the rain, and the prospect of an early start and a miserable sail (more like motor) back to the marina before a long drive home in the morning - not exactly the idyllic sailing weekend I’d imagined.

By morning, the crud was back and we had a pretty long slog back to the marina, where I dropped off Maryanne. The time had come for me to begin making my way north in Begonia. Maryanne was taking our rental car back to NJ.

She drove through horrid road conditions caused by the storms while Begonia and I got a good soaking crossing the Rappahannock.

By the time I got into Maryland, the rain finally died down a bit and I got a real wind for a fast sail to my first anchorage at Mill Creek in the Great Wicomico. This is one of my favorite anchorages in Chesapeake Bay. We have stayed here many times before. It was in fact the first anchorage where Maryanne and I anchored Footprint after we picked her up from the factory.

My evening in my favorite “quiet” anchorage was spent watching lightning shows and listening to thunderclaps. I took advantage of all of the free water with a combined outdoor shower and deck wash.

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